Posts Tagged With: ego

There has been a whole lot of talk about strength in the Corinthian correspondence this past month. Strong leaders, strong reasoning and speaking skills, a strong tolerance for sin (though too strong for Paul’s liking), a strong sense of grace (again, too strong), strong pocketbooks, strong charisma and gifting, strong leaders, strong egos, and strong boasts. Corinth was a culture of strength, and so was this church.

We have already seen Paul say there are other strengths to have that are far more important. They need a strong sense of unity that bridges the many divides they have allowed to form in their church. They need a strong love towards each other shown through character, not spiritual gifts. They need a strong spirit of generosity so as to help those who have real need in the world. Today, Paul ends these two volumes with one more kind of true strength the Corinthians should be sure to have in a culture that seems hyper-focused on strength. They would do well to be strong in doing the right thing.

Test yourselves to see if you really are in the faith! Put yourselves through the examination. Or don’t you realize that Jesus the Messiah is in you? — unless, that is, you’ve failed the test. I hope you will discover that we didn’t fail the test. But we pray to God that you will never, ever do anything wrong; not so that we can be shown up as having passed the test, but so that you will do what is right. (13:7)

What big idea really stood out to you during this year’s reading of the Corinthian correspondence?

Here in America, the presidential campaigns are heating up and there is enough ego to choke on coming from both parties. I guess that is part of the game. Football seasons are cranking up and a great number of athletes are more than willing to tell us how good they are. In the world of Howard Stern, Usain Bolt, LeBron James, and Lady Gaga self-promotion is a must. Then our kids learn this and life imitates art in the hallways of schools across America and on Facebook and Instagram pages.

How do we walk like Christ through the world of ego?

We are headed now into the last big part of 2 Corinthians where the idea of “boasting” is key. In this chapter alone the word “boast” is used seven times in eighteen verses. As we will see more clearly in the next chapter but as has been seen several times already in the Corinthians correspondence, pride was certainly encouraged in the self-important culture of Achaia. A person needed to make a name for themselves, develop the skills and personality traits that were admired, and then they didn’t need to feel bad about making these known. Furthermore, pride always brings about competition, and it seems it was also okay to point out your opponents failures in comparison to your strengths. We can tell that in the Corinthian church there were people present not lacking in ego and quite willing to point out Paul’s inferiority.

Paul states in this chapter that he felt justified in joining in the boasting, but he would boast in what God had done through him, not his own accomplishments.

But when we boast, we don’t go off into flights of fancy; we boast according to the measure of the rule God has given us to measure ourselves by, and that rule includes our work with you! (10:13)

For Paul, the most important things he has ever done, the greatest bragging point is simply the success he has had evangelizing. Yet, Paul also knows that success does not come from his great rhetoric, because he is sometimes lost for words. It is not his charisma and personality; he is too meek and weak for that. It is not some ministry proudly named after himself, because the power of his ministry came from God and the ability to change hearts always comes from God. The Corinthians need not look for Paul’s credentials to be impressed. They only need to look at their own history to realize, they would not be in Christ had Paul not come to town.

I imagine the church at Corinth was not an easy church to lead. Yet, the Apostle Paul went far and beyond to help them become what God would have them be as a church. We likely only have two of the four letters we can tell Paul wrote this church (maybe three if our Second Corinthians is actually two letters combined). We can tell from the way Paul starts many of the sections in First Corinthians that this letter is actually a response to some sort of correspondence from the Corinthian Christians. Next maybe only to Ephesus, Paul spent more time in Corinth during his missionary journeys than anywhere else. As challenging as the Corinthians were to Paul, he dearly loved them and that comes out in these letters.

Paul seems to be combating several issues in these two letters, each letter quite different from the other.

Holy living in an unholy culture: Corinth was home to many temples, not all of which were likely in use at the time of Paul. The most famous of these was the Temple of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, in which 1000 temple prostitutes once had served. On the north side of the city was a temple to Asclepius, the god of healing. This background of idolatry and sexuality will appear several times in the two letters. This may be Corinth’s most recognized vice. There is a now-archaic English verb, “to corinthianize,” which means to engage in lewd and indecent acts of debauchery, especially unbridled and indecent sexuality. Paul’s instructions will be unequivocal: navigate through a sinful society with purity, abstinence, and consideration for your brothers and sisters in Christ. This point is also what makes many people say 1 Corinthians is especially relevant for today’s world.

Airs of superiority amongst the members and the division that naturally would bring: Wisdom was key to the Greek culture. At least in some people’s minds, one’s value was attached in part to their intellectual development. Education, philosophy and conventional thinking would have been held in high esteem. As we will see early in 1 Corinthians, this attitude was clearly present in the Corinthian church as well. This thinking also seems to have shaped how they thought about the spiritual gifts they had been given by the Spirit. A pecking order of giftedness seems to have been causing a problem, as was their penchant to group off according to which religious teacher they preferred. Unity will be the most recurring point in these letters.

Misunderstandings about the resurrection of the dead: There can be no misunderstandings about this all-important idea fundamental to Christianity, yet it seems the Corinthians had many. Paul will speak to the who, when, how, and what of the resurrection from the dead.

Encouraging the Corinthian Christians to give generously to famine-striken Christians in Jerusalem: Situated at a main commercial nexus point between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas, there would have been a good bit of wealth in the city. Paul will encourage his Greek brothers and sisters to use that wealth to show tangible love for the Jewish brothers and sisters who started this movement they are now a part of.

Having to defend this apostolic authority: Paul’s response to this issue composes most of Second Corinthians. This was an especially big deal as questions of authority would have undermined everything Paul had been working for in Corinth. The emphasis on wisdom in Corinthian culture would have contributed to this as Paul was foreign, educated in non-Greek religion and philosophy, and he did not emphasize the charisma commonplace in Greek cultural leaders. More troubling for Paul were false teachers posing as apostles who had come to Corinth since his departure who were turning the church against him. They painted Paul as opportunistic, greedy for their money, unreliable, and unskilled. Paul responds will great passion and fire. For what it’s worth, Paul’s explanation of why he is competent to be a “minister of reconciliation” has been one of my favor sections of Scripture since first training for the ministry in undergrad.

So much of the Corinthian letters has to do with church life. This may be where we see Paul’s pastoral heart best of all.

Luke is now dealing with the end of Jesus’ life as thoroughly as he did Jesus’ birth. This long chapter takes us to death’s doorstep. I was struck by many things — how afraid of the crowd the Pharisees were but by the end of the chapter they are somehow able to turn them against Jesus, how much Jesus wanted to be with and supported by his disciples at this point, how confusing his instructions are in this chapter — but it was the strange juxtaposition of two verses that come side by side that really caught my attention today:

They began to ask each other which of them was going to do this [betray Jesus]. (22:23)

Followed immediately by:

A quarrel began among them: which of them was to be seen as the most important? (22:24)

As he sits at the Last Supper with his beloved group, Jesus announces that one of them is going to betray him. In Luke’s account he does nothing to hint toward Judas. The disciples are indignant: “Surely not me! I would never do a thing like that! I will be loyal to the end!”

Then . . . one verse later . . . those very same disciples begin to argue over who is the most important disciples amongst the group. Peter asserts it must be him because he walked on the water to meet Jesus and Jesus did say the keys of the kingdom would be given to him. Andrew reminds Peter that he wouldn’t have even been there if he hadn’t introduced Peter to Jesus. James argues it would have to be him because he was always there in the inner group of three to see special things like the Transfiguration, and he didn’t have the tendency to make the same stupid gaffes Peter often did. John reminds the group he is the “disciple whom Jesus loves.” Philip makes his claim: wasn’t he the one who boldly declared he would gladly go with Jesus and die? Bartholomew is sure it will be him because he is so humble he is never even mentioned in the Gospels!

They are shocked that Jesus would think any of them would betray him. That any of them would work against the very things Jesus came to do. That they would disappoint their rabbi. Then moments later they are asserting their own power, reputations, and egos. They have quickly turned to the trespass that may be most contrary to the way of Christ: self-assertion.